‘Hard Knocks’ executive producer says Buffalo Bills’ championship window perfect drama for cameras
Unlike many teams on the show, the Bills are looking to get over the hump, not rebuilding.
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The Buffalo Bills dodged it for as long as they could.
Now the unavoidable is upon them. Bills training camp opens Wednesday at St. John Fisher University, and “Hard Knocks” is here whether they want it or not.
When the groundbreaking reality series launched in 2001, it was considered an honor to be featured.
That sentiment didn’t last long. “Hard Knocks,” produced by NFL Films for HBO, has won 19 Emmys but carries a stigma now — a weeks-long distraction front offices abhor.
This year, the NFL had to loosen the criteria to force participation. Buffalo was the first team chosen under the new rules.
The Bills are a hot brand, thanks mostly to reigning MVP Josh Allen and five consecutive AFC East crowns. That said, they’re relatively dull by usual “Hard Knocks” standards. The Bills are stable. The culture established by coach Sean McDermott and general manager Brandon Beane has been effective at mitigating friction.
NFL Films vice president and executive producer Ken Rodgers, the longtime “Hard Knocks” steward, still anticipates dramatic stories to tell. He knows a great tale when he sees one. Rodgers has been in charge of “Hard Knocks” since 2007 and directed the 2015 documentary “Four Falls of Buffalo” for ESPN.
NFL Films has dispatched 35 crew members, led by senior director and suburban Rochester native Pat Harris. Eight cameras will record practices, with 18 to 20 robotic cameras installed in meeting rooms at St. John Fisher and One Bills Drive. Ceiling-tile microphones will be implanted all over the place. Five to eight Bills will wear microphones every day.
“Hard Knocks: Training Camp with the Buffalo Bills” will premiere Aug. 5 and run for five episodes, the final installment airing five days before the regular-season opener against the Baltimore Ravens.
To preview the endeavor, Rodgers recently spent some time answering questions from The Athletic about why the Bills were chosen, how producers navigate teams’ concerns and why it’s better not to have a detailed plan heading into camp.
With the NFL loosening up the rules for more and better teams to be eligible for “Hard Knocks,” why did you choose the Bills?
That feeling is there. I don’t think, process-wise, that’s how it worked. We always look for a different story, a story everyone is curious about. Sometimes, it comes down to what a team is doing to get back on track. That’s certainly a really interesting story at training camp, when there’s a lot more at stake for teams that are trying to get back on track as opposed to teams that are trying to repeat their success or get one step further. In general, the training camp show has always been more intense with teams that are trying to right the ship. But some of our best shows, certainly the Ravens in ’01 and 2010 Jets, who were coming off the AFC Championship appearance, are teams that already have an established identity and feel very comfortable internally. They know who they are. They’re trying to figure out how to turn a machine that’s already running smoothly up to 11.
It felt like we had enough years here of an audience outside the Buffalo Bills’ fandom knowing the Bills, but not knowing enough about the Bills. They’ve gotten their national appearances. They’ve gotten their playoff runs. They’ve gotten their awards, including last year’s MVP. But I don’t think enough people know about them and what their philosophy is and what mindset created this current run of success. That’s a shame, and it makes me feel like they’re the perfect team to expose outside their own fandom. “Hard Knocks” has a larger, casual fan base than most other NFL programming. It’s a workplace drama, and it’s about the characters. It’s become a series that’s about the people, and I think the nation is going to get to know these people in a way that they haven’t experienced from just watching them play on Sunday.
When the Bills were selected as this year’s “Hard Knocks: Training Camp” team, they didn’t put out a press release or announce it on their website or social media. They’re known to be doing this against their wishes. How have you handled that dynamic with teams that don’t want to do it?
I understand it. Even as a filmmaker, I believe in under-promising and over-delivering in our work. I want to be under the radar and surprise people and not have people thinking about us until we air and realize what a great show it is.
Almost every coach wants to stay under the radar, but “Hard Knocks,” to its credit, is so popular that it really raises the profile of the team we feature. It’s antithetical to an organization’s goals sometimes. But the way I view it — and I think this is exactly how the Bills are treating it — is that the football staff probably doesn’t want to travel to Europe for games, probably don’t want to play on Thursday nights or Monday nights. If they could, they would play at home at 1 o’clock on Sunday every week. Routines, you know? Doing things as they’ve always been done. But the National Football League is, in the end, an entertainment business and a licensing business and a fan engagement business. Once you’re chosen to play in Europe, once you’re playing on Thursday night out on the West Coast, you accept it, you move on, you manage it and you try to maximize that experience.
The Bills have been low-drama since Sean McDermott arrived, but that doesn’t mean there won’t still be entertaining material on the show. (Tina MacIntyre-Yee / USA Today)
Dan Campbell and Rex Ryan not only welcomed “Hard Knocks,” but they probably also helped you get after it. Bills coach Sean McDermott is not like those guys. How do you convince him it’s going to be OK?
My guess is the Bills will utilize the show in that way. They’ll embrace the opportunity without letting it distract them. If they had to vote, maybe they wouldn’t appear. But football is a game of adjustment, and this is a great opportunity for them to learn how to adjust to a pretty minor thing, when you think about it, and really bring something positive to the community and the fan base. We often say, “If you want to get where the Bills are going and have been, deep into the playoffs, hopefully to Super Bowls, six cameras on the sideline in practice shouldn’t be a problem.
The Lions (in 2022) just embraced who they were: “We’re not going to shy away. We’re proud of who we are. We’re going to show off our culture.” It led to this really great relationship to fans around the country, seeing the Lions be who they are. I have a feeling the Bills are going to be the same way. They’re going to be very comfortable. They’re not going to be rattled by a couple cameras. They’ve been under a microscope for years and years now — on a positive side. If anyone is worried, then the worry should disappear pretty quickly because of the culture that’s already present.
Regarding culture, these Bills have done an admirable job of minimizing distractions since Sean McDermott and Brandon Beane arrived. I would even say they were relatively dull last year, despite their success and having the NFL’s best player. Where’s the drama?
It will be a different-feeling show because the drama will be elsewhere. It won’t be drama in trying to fix what’s broken. It’s going to be drama in trying to take one small step forward and win that Super Bowl. I guess that’s a humongous step, but it’s one more step, whereas some teams we feature have to cover a country mile to get back into the race and fight for the division. This won’t be a drama of desperation like some training camps are around the NFL. The drama is a self-aware, confident drama in that “We know who we are, and we know what we have to do. The question is, can we do it?” The stakes are important because they’re that close to the ultimate goal. That’s great television.
What are the typical battles you wage with teams over what you want to show, but maybe they don’t?
It really comes down to convincing them there really isn’t going to be a “take.” Almost every team we’ve worked with wasn’t worried about things being shown, but being interpreted in a way that might be accurate through one person’s eyes, but not the other person’s. Then, a week later, it might not matter that the person screwed up because they score a touchdown in the game. That’s the drama, how a practice screwup led to triumph in a game. We focus on the promise that we’re not going to take a subjective look at this. That solves a lot of the problems.
I think back to the unfortunate incident where Chad Johnson was arrested in Miami (in 2012 on a domestic battery charge). We were very clear that we were not going to make any sort of judgment call. “We’re going to show how you deal with this as a team and let everyone else interpret how you dealt with it as they may.” That really worked with (Dolphins coach) Joe Philbin, and it’s something we harken back to a lot to illustrate how the truth is never really as dangerous as the interpretation of the event. Most teams are really flexible with the things we show. This is also a relationship between a company that’s been around for 63 years in NFL Films and our partners in the league.
We’ve known each other for that long and have made plenty of programming over the years. It’s not like asking someone to dance in middle school without knowing if they’ll laugh at you. We’ve been dance partners before. We’ve had hundreds of conversations.
How does producing “Hard Knocks” differ from a documentary film such as “Four Falls of Buffalo”?
As crazy as it sounds, I can’t tell you how much easier “Hard Knocks” is to do than a documentary like “Four Falls” because you just react. It’s all instinct. You make the show, and then it’s over. You don’t labor over it in your head.
“Four Falls” was a full year of work and decades of material to make a two-hour documentary. For “Hard Knocks,” we have seven days to make each hour for five straight weeks. In many ways, they’re the exact opposite — quick turnaround, verite, reaction to the present and not a historical piece that takes a long time to muddle through and find the perspective.
As stable as the Bills have been, as much continuity as there is from top to bottom within the organization and their ability to limit distractions, “Hard Knocks” storylines often pivot on the unknown unknowns of training camp. How do you capitalize on developments you can’t prepare for?
It really is a question of having the discipline of a documentarian and not a narrative writer. We do go into camp with what we think the storylines are, whether it’s position battles or players rehabbing from injuries or newcomers trying to prove themselves or MVPs trying to take the next step. There are 90 stories on the roster. But you have to have the discipline to throw out what you thought ahead of time and go with what is actually happening.
Most teams wonder what our stories are going to be, and they all realize after being on “Hard Knocks” that we don’t have preconceived storylines. What happens in camp are the storylines. We follow that on a person-by-person basis. We don’t know who’s going to have a bad camp or regress or perform above expectations. You have to be flexible. It’s difficult because it’s easy to project what you think is a better story, but reality is reality.
How do you feel about training camp being on a college campus an hour away instead of at the team facility?
One thing that’s fascinating to me is that not many go away for training camp anymore. This is an old-school NFL atmosphere, and that’s something we haven’t shown on “Hard Knocks” for a while. That fits this team and the city really well. It’s about the relationships. It’s about how these guys work together and spend their time together. This team is different than most, and this helps to give us a window because they won’t be going home every night. They’re going to be together, and that provides a type of bonding other teams might not get.
When things go a little too smoothly in a training camp, how do you not root for something provocative to happen?
Nothing goes perfectly with all 90 players. That’s where (late NFL Films boss and Pro Football Hall of Famer) Steve Sabol used to say, “Training camp is a crucible of emotions.” There’s just not enough spots on the team. The offense practices against the defense; one of them is going to perform better. There might not be as much tension on a team level, but training camp naturally gives you a full range of emotions because there are 90 stories, and it’s our job to represent even if the camp as a whole is going great, that not every individual story will.
It’s like putting your brain on autopilot. People ask me all the time whether it’s better to cover the game when the Bills win or lose, and I always tell them it doesn’t matter because something is going to happen. So that’s what I’ll write about.
I don’t mean to sound mystical, but it’s about being open to the universe. Whatever happens, happens, and we’re going to cover it. People always ask us, “What’s going to be on the next episode?” We sort of laugh because whatever it is hasn’t happened yet, literally. We don’t know!
Having that flexibility has to be built in because of the quick production turnaround. There’s no time to make up narratives and carefully craft the ups and downs. It happens, then we put it on air, and the easiest way to put it on air is to be true to what the story is. Other people can interpret whether they like this person or not that person, or you liked that speech, or that person is overconfident. Judgments we try to stay out of. We just want to produce an hour’s representation of the 300, 400 hours we captured this week. Take it for what it is.
